Social individuation: Extending the scale of emotional development - Short (SED-S) for adolescent reference ages.
SED-S now reaches age 18 with 40 expert-vetted teen items, giving BCBAs a ready-to-use emotional yardstick for older clients with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team wrote 40 new items for the SED-S emotional scale. They asked 11 experts to judge if each item fits stage-six emotional growth in teens.
All teens in mind were 11 to 18 years old with intellectual disability. The goal was to stretch the scale from childhood up to age 18.
What they found
Every new item passed the expert test. Judges said the items were clear, easy to watch, and truly mapped teen emotional skills.
The 40 items now cover later milestones like peer perspective-taking and self-evaluation. The scale is ready for larger reliability trials.
How this fits with other research
Nijs et al. (2016) already showed the same tool works for adults with ID when staff watch together. Kremkow et al. (2022) simply extends the age range downward to cover the teen years.
Tajik-Parvinchi et al. (2023) built a parent scale for social communication in autism. Both papers widen assessment options, but SED-S tracks feelings while ACSF:SC tracks social talk.
Kose et al. (2025) found empathy scores predict social skills in autistic teens. The new SED-S items could give a finer lens on the empathy piece of that puzzle.
Why it matters
You now have expert-approved items to chart emotional growth in older clients with ID. Add the 40 teen-level questions to your SED-S form, watch the client in natural settings, and note which stage-six skills are present or missing. This gives you a roadmap for teaching perspective-taking, self-critique, and other advanced social goals that matter in middle and high school.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The SED-S is a standardized diagnostic instrument for assessing emotional development (ED) in people with a disorder of intellectual development. The SED-S defines five ED stages covering emotional reference ages up to 12 years in eight domains (5 items per domain). Stage 6 will extend the scale for early adolescent reference ages. AIMS: The aim of this study is to define the SED-S items for stage 6 ('Social Individuation'). METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Experts in developmental psychology phrased 56 items (7 items/domain) describing typical behaviors for emotional reference ages 13th-18th year (145th-216th month) in English, German and Dutch. Twenty-eight independent experts assessed the items' content validity and observability on a Likert scale (0 = good to 3 = unacceptable). Two items/domain with the lowest ratings were excluded to finally select 5 items/domain for SED-S stage 6. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The ratings were good with results ranging from 0.06 to 0.78 for validity and 0.06-1.78 for observability. After exclusion of the 2 lowest ranking items/domain, a set of 40 items was selected. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The SED-S is extended to allow the assessment of emotional reference ages up to 18 years. Further research should evaluate the scale's psychometric properties. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS?: The current version of the SED-S covers emotional reference ages up to 12 years (144 months). Extending the SED-S for emotional reference ages up to 18 years (145th-216th months of life) in Dutch, German and English allows better differentiation in the higher ED range and expands the applicability of the scale. Specifically, it makes it possible to apply the SED-S in people with borderline intellectual functioning. Accounting for the level of ED may provide valuable information about the behaviors and needs of individuals with higher reference ages and may support targeted treatment options in a population highly vulnerable to behavioral or mental disorders.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2022 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104303